Smile
by Bohemian Storm
Summary: When Harry has to leave and there's nothing left to say, can Ginny finally bring herself to lie to him?


**Disclaimer**:  The characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not me.  The song belongs to Great Big Sea, one of those amazingly talented men wrote it.

**Notes**:  The first time I heard this song it made me bawl.  It just seemed fitting.

**Smile**

_By Bohemian Storm_

_From the first hello you gave to me_

_I've done nothing else but smile . . ._

            She could do nothing else but smile at him softly, tears in her eyes and on her cheeks.  They had met nine years ago when she had run alongside the train, red hair cascading behind her and that same soft smile on her lips.  He knew the years had aged them both a little, but to him she looked no different than she had at ten years old.  He had fallen in love with her that day, just a little bit.  How could a young boy, completely wowed by the world he had just entered, not fall in love with the pretty little girl with red hair?  It had only been a little, but he supposed that little bit had been enough for the seven long years he had pretended not to notice.

            Seven years.  Merlin, had it really been that long?  Had he wasted so much time only to have two short years with her before he had to risk losing it all?  He should have known from the time she had put her elbow in the butter dish, but he hadn't.  He had been just a boy, after all, and boys that young didn't think clearly about their lives.  He had been invincible; at that point he had seen so far into the future that it grew hazy and faded a little around the edges.

            She had always been there, though.  All those times he had looked into his seemingly immortal future, she had been there somewhere.  She might have been watering the plant in the flat he had newly purchased with her brother, or maybe she had been a waitress at a restaurant he was dining at.  It wasn't until he was older that her face really stood out in those wistful longings for adulthood.  She had gone from waitress to best friend, then the blushing, awkward girl he had taken to the Muggle movies.  She had loved them in his head, glowed with awe at the moving pictures on the screen.

            Their first date hadn't been quite as fantastic as he had imagined.  The pictures had terrified her and she had stared at her feet for the first twenty minutes of the movie, only to look up during a car chase that ended in an explosion.  She had hidden her face in his shoulder for the remainder of the film, but that hadn't been as romantic as he had imagined either.  She had blushed furiously after dropping the popcorn, then went into a violent coughing fit after her first taste of carbonated water.

            Things had improved slowly after that, their dates building on that first one.  She hadn't hidden from the second movie they had seen and he had made sure to carry the popcorn bucket for her.  She had changed as well; she was able to laugh about some of her embarrassing moments rather than taking them as personally as she always had in the years before.  He had smiled a little as well, not wanting to laugh at her even though she had given him permission to with her laughter. 

            Over the two years her smile hadn't changed, though.  They were still the same, soft smiles that almost looked sad in a way.  He supposed that she had reason to be sad.  One of her brothers was gone, torn away by the war that still barely simmered even years after Voldemort's return.  Her home was shaken, her other brothers tiptoeing around her mother as if they feared any mention of Charlie would destroy her permanently.  Her father had thrown himself into his work, but he still loved her.  Her whole family still loved her and though they were short one member, they still acted like they had when he had first met them.

            Sometimes he missed their spark, but it was only really lost when they remembered him suddenly; when they passed by his abandoned book that his mother had left in the same place he had left it, or when they saw a picture that they hadn't expected to see.  

            He had always tried to read her smile, to read the words that were expressed through it, but he always read it wrong.  He supposed that, even as he stood there trying to read her now, he was really reading what he wanted to hear her say.  If she didn't say anything, he could create an entire conversation in his head that was based off her smile.  It always ended in the same words.

            The words she hadn't been able to say to him yet.

_I know you're in a hurry_

_But it's gonna take awhile_

            He wanted to tell her not to cry, that her tears weren't needed.  He just wanted her to keep smiling in that way that could make him believe just for a second that she had actually said the words he needed the hear.  When she cried it hurt him inside and he wanted nothing more than to make her feel better.  There wasn't time for her tears now, not when he was trying so hard to say goodbye without crying himself.  

            He had to leave.  It was simple and there was no choice about it.  He was needed in the fight and he had a duty to his world.  He had a duty to protect the people that looked up to him as The Boy Who Lived.  She had asked him quietly not to go at first, then her mouth had tightened into a thin line and she had spoken a little louder.  After he tried to explain, she had thrown her book at him and screamed.

            _This isn't how it's supposed to be.  That's what she had screamed at him.  _

            _I haven't had time yet.  That was the other thing she had yelled and at the time he hadn't understood what she meant._

            He knew now.  He understood perfectly what those words had meant when she had screamed them.  It hurt so much to think about it, but he had no other choice.  This was his life and he couldn't run from it any more than he could run from his duty.  He had chosen to be with her and she had picked him.  They had decided on this life together and there wasn't anything to do but face it head on.

            He didn't want to leave because leaving hurt her.  Then again, he thought that, despite the pain, she understood just a little of what he was going through.  His departure would be painful for her to endure, but he had no choice in the matter.  The fact that she couldn't . . . no, that she didn't love him hurt, but she couldn't control that.  She might one day, but she wasn't ready for that yet.  

            Had it really been two years?  Only two that he had fallen so deeply in love with this girl?  It seemed like it had all happened in the blink of an eye, first they were dating tentatively, then seriously, and then talking about their future and the home they would live in together.  He had said it so many times and each time that she had opened her mouth to say it back then stopped and smiled sadly, he had felt a little part of him break down.          

            Her smile was easily his undoing.  Sometimes when he saw it he wanted to cry and others he just wanted to hold her until things were better because he still thought that his arms around her could make things better.  In some ways he was so much more naive that she was, he still seemed to believe in fairy tale endings and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

            She had seen the end of the rainbow and the only thing there was her brother's grave.  Still she tried; she tried to be cheerful and happy.  Sometimes she really was because sometimes he was enough to make her heart swell so large she thought it might really burst in her chest.  It was times like those that she almost told him she loved him, then stopped because it wouldn't be the truth.  It was so strange, but she couldn't love him yet, she just wasn't programmed to move that quickly.

            When she had been a little girl she had imagined a world with him in it every day.  She had created a fantasy where he had kissed her softly every night before whispering good night into her ear and disappearing into the shadows.  She had really believed that she had loved him in her little girl way.  Her heart belonged only to him from the time she was ten years old, but it hadn't been love.  Given time she knew that it would be, but not yet.  There hadn't been enough time.

            He wanted to say something, she knew it.  He wanted to tell her not to worry, that he'd be back, but she wouldn't hear it.  She would only remember Charlie telling her not to worry, he'd be back and then finding out weeks later that he would never be back.  He wanted to tell her not to cry, but it was already too late for those words.  She was terrified for him, scared stiff that their relationship would never be given a chance because he wouldn't return to her.

            He took her hand, his fingers running over the back very gently.  Her tears splashed down onto their skin and he touched her cheek.  She looked up and smiled at him.  He kissed her forehead and smiled back.

            "I love you, Gin," he whispered against her skin.

            Her eyes closed against the tears and she said, "I love you, Harry."

            He knew she was lying, but he wouldn't say anything.  Instead he just dropped her hand, then smiled once more and turned his back on her.

            She would love him one day, she knew it.  She just hoped that the day she could wouldn't be a day too late for them.

_I'll tell you all of the things that you'll never forget_

_But I'm not ready to say I love you yet . . ._

End


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